Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer is known as a more contemporary Hegel. Both were students of Kant but disagreed with each other's philosophies; Hegel's ideas were more influential and recognised whereas Schopenhauer's ideas were more similar to Kant.
He is an immaterialist; he believes that the world doesn't exist independently of perception but does believe that their must have be something to start the world; an uncaused cause or a formless matter. He agrees with Kant's philosophy of the dual nature of objects; the phenomena and the noumena. However, he doesn't agree everything can be seen as a thing in itself, the only actual thing that can be perceived as a thing in itself is existence. He describes this as the will.
The will, however, isn't God or a purpose. Schopenhauer believed there was no purpose for life and everything was arbitrary. The will was just the driving force of the universe which he believed was a curse; the constant need for fulfilment. He thought life was nothing but misery, pain and eventually death. In fact, he even thought suicide was the best thing a person could do in life. You could fight against the will but you could never win as he believed the will was evil. There was temporary eases of the pain such as drugs or music but they didn't last long, and suicide was the easiest and most permanent escape.
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